Marijuana activist Marc Emery vows to campaign for Justin Trudeau — as soon as he gets out of U.S. jail

VANCOUVER — The Liberals may be leery of the idea, but when marijuana activist Marc Emery ends his four-year U.S. prison term on Wednesday, he has vowed an all-out, cross-Canada campaign to rally votes for Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

“The star power we could bring to the campaign alongside Trudeau, that’s powerful in an election when nothing else seems to get out the vote,” said Jodie Emery, recently returned from her last visit with her husband at Yazoo City Federal Prison in Mississippi.

“We won’t get a chance like this again,” she said.

Recently, Ms. Emery submitted her name to run as the Liberal candidate in Vancouver East, the riding represented for the past 17 years by the NDP’s Libby Davies.

“I got asked by the members of the riding association if I would want to run, I thought about it, and I joined the party only about a month ago,” she said.

As yet, Ms. Emery has yet to submit official papers for the nomination, and her candidacy would still need to be vetted by a local “Green Light committee.”

“I’m sure they’re looking up all my old videos and photos, and you can’t hide those big bong hit photos from the old days,” she said.

On Wednesday, Mr. Emery, 56, will end his 1,590-day U.S. prison sentence for drug distribution, although he expects he will not be deported across the Detroit-Windsor border until mid-August.

From then until the October 2015 federal election, the self-styled “Prince of Pot” has said he intends to appear at public events across the country imploring supporters to vote for the Liberal party.

Speaking by phone, Mr. Emery acknowledged it “might make Mr. Trudeau a bit nervous,” but added, “I have to make good use of my reputation in the cannabis culture, and no job is more important than defeating prohibitionist regimes.”

The Liberal party endorsed marijuana legalization at a party convention in early 2012, and in the months since Mr. Trudeau has made it a key point of his public speeches — even admitting to smoking marijuana since his election to the House of Commons.

Nevertheless, Liberal party headquarters has been careful not to condone — or even acknowledge — the Emerys’ planned tour.

“They’ve already said ‘we aren’t endorsing this’; I haven’t reached out to them and they haven’t reached out to us,” said Ms. Emery.

Mr. Emery’s support for the Liberals comes after a lifetime of varied political loyalties. A one-time member of the Libertarian Party of Canada and the Freedom Party of Canada, Mr. Emery is the founder of both the federal Marijuana Party and the B.C. Marijuana Party, and has mounted unsuccessful election bids for the House of Commons, the B.C. legislature and Vancouver City Hall.

He has also issued endorsements for the federal NDP and the B.C. Green Party, and has called Ayn Rand the “most profound influence in my life.”

Originally from Kamloops, Ms. Emery has only four campaigns under her belt, most recently as a Vancouver area Green Party candidate during the most recent B.C. election — but she maintains she is the more politically viable of the couple.

“There are Liberals who are uncomfortable with this, obviously … but if they do that, they can look at my record; I have never said anything embarrassing or inflammatory,” she said, adding “maybe I’ve said a few things that are uncomfortably too true, but I’m not like Marc used to be.”

Most notably, in 2005 Mr. Emery called Justice Minister Irwin Cotler a “Nazi Jew,” a comment for which he later apologized.

The Liberal Party did not respond to National Post requests for comment, although party sources confirmed that the Emerys’ planned rallies were unsanctioned events.

Whether or not the couple ever receives official Liberal backing — and whether or not Ms. Emery wins the candidacy in Vancouver East — she says it will have no effect on their support for the party.

“I think they’ll see that Marc and I are much more beneficial as allies rather than even outsiders turned away,” she said.

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